Recipe
Pasta with courgette, basil, and white bean cream
Signora Elena lives on the third floor and conducts a running audit of everyone else's shopping.
She does it on the stairs, at the precise moment your hands are full and the bags are transparent. It is not conversation. It is assessment, delivered as a single observation with a long pause after it. Ah. Courgettes again. And then she waits, on a landing, in a housecoat, for you to account for yourself.
The thing that makes Signora Elena unbearable is that she is right about food. Four courgettes and nothing else in the bag is, in fact, not dinner. It is a side dish with ambitions. You will eat it at 20:30, feel virtuous for roughly forty minutes, and then find yourself at 22:15 standing in the light of the open fridge with the specific hunger of a person who ate vegetables and called it a meal.
This recipe is the answer to that pause on the stairs. It is still mostly courgettes, but a tin of cannellini beans goes into a blender with olive oil, a clove of garlic and a splash of the pasta water, and comes out as a sauce with the texture of cream and none of the cream in it. That sauce is what holds the dish together, what makes it cling to the pasta instead of sliding off, and what means you are still full at 22:15.
The beans are doing three jobs at once, which is the sort of efficiency that would genuinely impress Signora Elena if you ever explained it to her, which you will not. They thicken. They add the protein. And they let you skip cheese entirely, which is the only way a pasta dish like this ends up vegan without feeling like a version of something else with a part missing.
Basil at the end, torn and not chopped, and more black pepper than seems polite.
- Prep 10 min
- Cook 18 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Put the pasta on in well-salted water. Set aside a mugful of the cooking water before you drain it, which is the step everyone forgets and then regrets.
11 min
- 2
Meanwhile fry the courgettes in 3 tbsp of the oil over high heat with a good pinch of salt. Leave them alone until they take colour, then turn. Browned is the goal, not steamed.
8 min
- 3
Add the sliced garlic to the courgettes for the last 30 seconds, then take the pan off the heat.
1 min
- 4
Blend the beans with the whole garlic clove, the remaining 2 tbsp oil, 100 ml of the pasta water, salt and pepper until completely smooth. Loosen with more water until it pours like double cream.
3 min
- 5
Return the pan to low heat, add the drained pasta and the bean cream, and toss for a minute so it coats everything. Loosen with more pasta water if it tightens.
2 min
- 6
Off the heat, add the lemon zest, torn basil and a lot of black pepper.
1 min
Variations
Peas instead of courgettes, added frozen straight into the pan, take 4 minutes and cost less. A tablespoon of nutritional yeast in the bean cream gives it a cheesy edge. Mint instead of basil is a Roman move and works beautifully with courgette. For a richer non-vegan version, finish with grated pecorino instead of the lemon zest. Toasted pine nuts on top are excellent and lose the nut-free flag.